Bollywood take note, director Abhishek Sharma’s satire, Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive, will take a swipe at your film industry and won’t shy away from tearing it down — one joke at a time.
“Everybody here is only trained to hear good things — something negative is not tolerated. But in the kind of films I make, I love laughing at myself, and that’s how it should be,” Sharma said in a recent interview.
Enter his latest comedy, a spin-off from the 2010 sleeper hit Tere Bin Laden. Set against the backdrop of terrorist Osama Bin Laden’s presumed death, Sharma wove a comedy about the US government’s desperation to provide proof of Laden’s mysterious capture and killing.
An aspiring Bollywood director aptly named Sharma, played by Indian actor Manish Paul, is called in and commissioned by an American government agent to make a film using Laden’s doppelganger, Paddi Singh (Pradhuman Singh). But the film offer is a smokescreen by the Americans. They want a fake tape to prove Laden’s death and they are convinced that roping in a Bollywood director to make the film on Bin Laden would do them good.
“But there’s nothing offensive or controversial here. While my first film was a joke on America’s war on terror, my spin-off won’t be a commentary on world politics. We have just made fun of Bollywood and how it functions. Generally, you make fun of things you love, I promise it’s a laugh riot. I have made fun of myself here,” said Sharma.
Further commenting, “Everybody in Bollywood wants to impose romance, but the audience is not always interested. Most of the time a good film fails because you have adulterated it with romance, which is not required. Look at Chak De! India. It was a Shah Rukh Khan film, but it had no romance. It worked. Imagine making a film with Shah Rukh without romance,” said Sharma.
“I would love the audience to enjoy my film. I want to make people laugh with a clean, funny film. Tere Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive is not a serious film about world geopolitics and I just want people to have fun.”
Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive releases in cinemas worldwide on 26th February 2016 and is distributed by Reliance Entertainment.
